Brent Meeker wrote:
> Bruno Marchal wrote:
> >
> > Hi Stathis,
> >
> >
> >> What you haven't really addressed in this post is the PR implications
> >> if you use the
> >> word "theology" prominently in your writing. You will alienate many
> >> scientists and
> >> academic philosophers even though this may be due to prejudice or
> >> misunderstanding,
> >> and you will alienate what extra audience may be attracted by that
> >> word when they
> >> realise that you are talking about machine consciousness and... maths
> >> and stuff. I
> >> know that the temptation for an intellectual (if you don't mind the
> >> term) is to let the
> >> ideas stand unadorned and be judged purely on their merit, but
> >> sometimes even in
> >> academia the better marketed ideas can push other, perhaps more worthy
> >> ones aside.
> >
> >
> > You may be right, but I am not convinced. I don't know how to explain
> > to you why I am not convinced. I guess it is partly related to more
> > personal-academical stuff ...
> >
> >
> >
> > Are you sure the problem is the word "theology"? Or should I drop the
> > whole "Plotinus" ...
> >
> >
> > Scientist of the type "capable of being alienated by words" have been
> > already alienated by expression like "consciousness", "mind",
> > "teleportation", etc. Even just the term "quantum" or "Godel" is enough
> > to alienate some mathematicians (even logician!) in some circle.
> >
> >
> > The current and provisory title of the paper which should present my
> > work is
> >
> > "A purely arithmetical, yet empirically testable, interpretation of
> > Plotinus' theory of Matter".
> >
> > But I am not yet decided, and ... what do you think? I know I could
> > write something like "the consequence of computationalism" ...., or
> > "Does comp entails a reversal ...".
> > Anyway, thanks for your comments.
> >
> > Bruno
>
> In a way my advice would be almost the opposite of Stathis'es. If you're
> selling a book, getting religion into the title is a good move. I think
> you're misusing "theology" by holding to an archaic meaning - but if you call
> your book, "Theology of the Machine" or "Cyber Theology" it will help it sell
> and you can immediately establish that you are using "theology" in an
> unconventional, tongue-in-cheek sense.
>
> Brent Meeker

I was going to give my two cents when I was so rudely interrupted by
more immediate reality: work.
My opinion on the marketing aspect (as a mathematician and engineer,
laugh here; then stop laughing and go to next statement;), would agree
with Brent's, something like "Machine Theology" would be an
eye-catching first book that introduces people to the mind-bending
ideas, sort of like Penrose's Emperor's New Mind, I know that's not a
good example. But then there's the follow-up larger book (like
Penrose's Road To Reality) that is intended to help with the actual
integration of the new concepts into the existing body of knowledge, or
the morphing of existing knowledge into the new paradigm (even though I
still don't believe that your paradigm and mine are ultimately
compatible, but you never know for sure ;)... ). You should expect
some major collisions between yours and existing paradigms, including
finding out that major parts of your arguments, or all, are wrong, just
as Penrose has, and having to backpeddle or totally modify, or start
from square one with the kernel of truth that remains after the
collisions. But in the end, you will have added to the advance of
knowledge, just as I believe Penrose has in spite of his mistakes. I
envision that somewhere down the line somebody might write a book that
takes the kernel of truth from your collisions and goes to the next
step. That's sort of what Penrose said he hopes happens with his Road
to Reality. This won't be it, but an example might be something like,
"New Theory of Everything Proposes A Totally New Way Of Looking At The
Whole Quantum Mechanics Vs. General Relativity Landscape". Of course
that would be in the context of how your paradigm effects the problems
physicists are trying to solve. But then there would be another book
about "New Theory Of Everything Proposes A Totally New Way Of Looking
At The Mind-Body Problem"... for the philosophers etc. It just seems
that this whole process is just too big to try to get our minds around
at one point in history. Of course I'm hoping for something like "New
Theory Of Everything Finds A Meta-Correspondence (Called The
Marchal-Caylor Correspondence) Between Logic And Logos" (a la Galois
Correspondence). (you can laugh here without stopping...)
Tom
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